Our October UPLIFT track supports Lamda Legal and their important work on behalf of LGBTQ legal and civil rights.
We've posted some excerpts and complete tracks on Bandcamp and Soundcloud so you can preview the entire subscribers series featuring Dave Douglas, Joe Lovano, Mary Halvorson, Julian Lage, Bill Laswell and Ian Chang.
Rudy Royston introduces Flatbed Buggy
This special edition of the podcast features Rudy Royston previewing tracks from his upcoming album Flatbed Buggy, discussing the inspirations for his compositions and giving an insider's view on how the record came together.
We've also released the third single from the album, Hourglass, ahead of the release date on October 26. Check it out here.
Breaking English, Bhatia’s audacious instrumental first album for ANTI- Records sets out to challenge existing musical vocabulary with a language of its own. “‘Hoods Up’ was the first track I started on Breaking English, and one of the last ones I finished,” explained Bhatia. “Years in the making, with multiple discarded versions littering the path to completion, the piece is the result of me trying to push myself beyond my limits. That required wading into uncharted territory, but it also meant accepting myself for who I am. I think the music carries some of the struggle of its creation with it.” “I started sculpting ‘Hoods Up’ in the wake of Trayvon Martin's senseless killing and the subsequent smear campaign against him: the systematic dehumanization of a young black teenager walking home in a hoodie. As I worked away at the song, escalating current events began to add layers of meaning to it. The white hoods from our country's past kept coming out of the woodwork, reminding us of the horrifying influence they continue to exert in the present.”
Bhatia is the first-generation American son of Muslim immigrant parents who trace their ancestry to India by way of East Africa. Early influences such as Jimi Hendrix, John Coltrane, and Madlib—as well as mentors and collaborators including Vijay Iyer and Billy Hart—prompted him to see music as a way to actively shape and represent his own identity, not limited by anyone else’s prescribed perspective. Bhatia is also eager to bring the hybridity of his ideas to the live stage; He will be performing tracks from Breaking English with Ian Chang of Son Lux on drums and Jackson Hill on bass.
1. Olduvai I - Minarets 01:27
2. Hoods Up 04:33
3. Olduvai II - We Are Humans, With Blood In Our Veins 01:16
